MECHANICS AXD USEFUL ARTS. 85 



the central part of the machine, anterior to which the space is perfectly 

 clear, so that when the machine is driven over a row of the corn-stalks, 

 the latter are successively brought against the teeth of the metallic 

 disks, and drawn out of and deposited upon the ground. 



An ingenious machine has also been invented for distributing the 

 cut grain of a harvester into suitable parcels for bundles, by the weight 

 of the grain. It is called a grain-Under. It consists of a self-regulat- 

 ing rotary cylinder, mounted on the rear end or extreme right side of 

 the machine, and having its axle parallel with the rear end ,of the 

 machine. This cylinder is supplied with catches and springs, and so 

 arranged that, when a certain weight of grain is received into one of 

 its three compartments, it performs a third part of a revolution, and 

 deposits the amount received for a bundle, while the next compartment 

 of the cylinder is being charged for a second bundle, and so on. 



Two machines, adapted to harvest maize, have been patented. The 

 first of these contains a thresher to husk and shell the grain. The 

 harvester consists of a machine in its general arrangement not unlike 

 a clover-head harvester. But it has a series of pairs of rollers, one pair 

 between every pair of teeth, to seize the stalks and pull them down- 

 wards, until the ear is drawn against the tops of the fingers, by which 

 the ear is severed from the stalk. The ear then rolls down an inclined 

 plane to the thresher. The principle of the second machine consists in 

 the construction of the grain reel, made with rows of fingers, projecting 

 radially, and rotating over or through the standing grain. The stalks 

 being received between the fingers, the ears are pulled off and deposited 

 on an inclined endless apron. 



A patent has been granted for a machine to cut and assort broom corn. 

 The design is to cut the broom corn into lengths according to the size 

 of the stalk, and to assort them into parcels, according to their lengths, 

 by the machine, so that they may be properly distributed for making 

 diffe rent-sized brooms. The machine consists of a long table, with an 

 endless apron running lengthwise, and beside it, and on the same level, 

 and a little obliquely to its direction, is arranged a pair of rollers run- 

 ning the whole length of the long table. These rollers lie one upon the 

 other, and are farthest from the endless apron at the entering end. 

 This endless apron is a belt of slat work, put in motion by machinery, 

 and gradually moving forward from the entering or feeding end of the 

 table, where the broom corn is fed to it by hand, and laid directly across 

 the apron with the butts all in one direction. When the broom corn has 

 traversed about one third the length of the table, it is brought under 

 compressing rollers, while, at the same time that the body of the stalk 

 is held firm in its place, the butt is brought between two rotary disks 

 with cutting edges, arranged like two rotary or circular saws, having 

 their cutting faces edge to edge, yet slightly lapping each other. The 

 edges of these cutting disks are very thin, and the under one serrated. 

 As the endless apron travels from the feeding to the discharging end, 

 it brings successively the butts of all the corn-stalks between the cutters 

 by which they are severed, and as they still move forward, those stalks 

 which are the longest, and consequently project farthest, are caught 

 first between the rollers, and, bv this means, carried from the endless 



8 



